


Persevering Chap

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Community: 31_days, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-07
Updated: 2012-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-04 23:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/399508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucien brings news of Orpheus' birth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Persevering Chap

**Author's Note:**

> Day/Theme: November 3rd (2009) / we are but weaklings pretending to be tough

Upon the shore, where the waves glide in like white-crested cranes, and rake the line of the shore cruelly as they glide out again, there stands a man. A new wave thunders angrily at his feet and the hem of his bilious clothing, but he is not shaken. Very little shakes him.

A description: his hair is a messy nest; his robes drape loosely over his frame, thin as flamingo legs. His face is pale, as though the blood had been drained from him with an ancient and non-invasive technique, if he had ever any blood at all. His eyes are the night sky, sparking coldly.

The sea is blue, blue, bright as mating plumage. It is vast, and it stretches out as far as the eye can see. The man stands next to it, a speck next to a speckled eggshell, small and dark, insignificant. This, of course, only proves the error in perception, for of these two things, only one is Endless, and that one is not the ocean with its dancing, tumbling waves.

He bends to meet the newest incarnation of the tide as it sweeps along the side of the shore.

Up strikes the sound of sandy trudging, growing louder and louder as the new player pops into view. He has a long stride, and flyaway hair, and on his beaky nose perches a pair of spectacles. "My lord," he says.

The man with fitted stars for eyes allows the wave to lap at his hand, catlike. He curls his fingers in the wet sand, a generous fist of loose grains that lick and roughen at his fingertips. "Lucien," he says.

"My lord, your son is born," announces the librarian.

Out splashes the waves, aghast at this declaration, and with it attends a multitude of sand and small assorted flotsam, washed firmly away. The sand in his fist is spirited away with that multitude in the saline tide, so he is left only with a dripping palm, and a few paltry grains that cling to his fingers as limpets might.

"You did not need to bring the news to me in person," he says. "As a messenger, the raven would have sufficed."

"I wished to bring news of such import myself, my lord," says the librarian, a note of disapproval in his voice.

"Ah," says the lord. "I should see the boy."

"Yes, lord Morpheus," says the librarian.

He brings his palm to his pale lips and puffs, hard. Breath strikes like a hammer, and the sand scatters like a startled flock. His hand is dry as bone.

"I shall see him," he decides.

"My lord," tries the librarian. "Perhaps you should see him in person, so his mother--"

"I do not go to see him for her benefit, Lucien," says Morpheus, and promptly disappears into a shower of sparkling twinkles, which flies off in the wake of the sand grains, the stuff of dreams.


End file.
